Lisa was unlocked and recuffed in turn. Holding their shoulders, Claremont continued to watch over the two clerks as Rick approached Nathan. “Don’t move until I say,” Claremont warned.

Glaring at Ben until she got his attention, Lisa motioned toward Claremont with her eyes while subtly pointing to her crotch. Ben leaned backward. “I’m not feeling so good,” he moaned. “I think I’m going to faint.” Claremont let go of Lisa to catch Ben as he fell. Lisa spun toward Claremont and slammed her knee into his groin. As Claremont and Ben fell to the floor, Lisa rushed to the door. Realizing what was happening, Rick turned away from Nathan, pulled his gun, and started shooting. Two bullets had ripped through the door by the time Lisa grabbed the doorknob.

“DON’T MOVE!” Rick screamed.

The door slightly ajar, Lisa stood there motionless, her hands still cuffed.

“I’ll do it-I’m not kidding. I’ll kill them all,” Rick threatened.

Lisa knew this was her last chance to escape. She darted into the hallway. Three more bullets plowed through the door.

Lisa headed straight for the emergency exit, but when she opened the stairwell door, she was surprised to see two other doors-one leading upstairs and one leading down. Opening the heavy metal door with her still-handcuffed hands, Lisa opted to run downstairs.

“Get her!” Rick screamed to Claremont, who was already staggering to the bullet-ridden door. Rick pointed his gun at Ben. “If you leave this room, I swear you’ll have two dead roommates to deal with.”

Ben looked over at Nathan, who was still handcuffed to his chair. “I’m not going anywhere,” Ben said. “I swear.” Seconds later, Rick was out the door.

Thrown off-balance by her handcuffs, Lisa had trouble navigating the first flight of stairs. Searching for a less awkward running position, she realized it was easier to move when she held her elbows close to her body. When she reached the twenty-third floor, she found another door blocking the stairway that led to the twenty-second floor. “Damn,” she said. Pulling open that door, she heard Rick and Claremont following behind her.

Racing down the stairs, her hands clenched and her elbows tight against her, Lisa fought with a door on every floor. As she grew fatigued, each door was heavier to open, and each staircase took longer to descend. At every landing, she was tempted to run back into the hallway, but fear and skepticism kept her to the stairs. As she opened the door to the sixth floor, she wondered how quickly Rick and Claremont were gaining on her.

When Lisa reached the fifth floor, she was exhausted. The lack of sleep combined with her circular descent caused a return of her morning vertigo. Refusing to surrender, though, she gritted her teeth against lightheadedness and plowed forward. Only four more, she told herself. Once I’m in the lobby, I’ll scream like a banshee. By the time she reached the door that led to the fourth floor staircase, the dizziness had returned and her body was covered in a fearful, fatigued sweat. Off-balance, she lurched for the doorknob. It was locked. Looking up, she saw a stenciled sign painted on the door: TO REACH LOBBY LEVEL, PLEASE USE SOUTH STAIRWELL. No! Not now! she thought, wildly kicking the door. Grabbing the doorknob again and putting her foot against the wall, she desperately pulled on the door. She heard the pounding of Rick’s and Claremont’s footsteps closing in on her.

Turning toward the door that led to the hallway, Lisa yanked it open and left the stairwell. In the sudden calm of the carpeted hallway, she looked through the plate-glass window on her right and caught a glimpse of a crystal-blue indoor swimming pool below. She ran down the corridor, banging on every door with her cuffed hands. “Fire! Everybody out! Fire!” she screamed. Not a single door opened. When she reached the elevators, she repeatedly pounded the down button with her fists. The digital display above the elevator doors showed one at the nineteenth floor and the other at the twenty-sixth. Too long to wait, she thought as she continued running. Heading toward the far end of the hallway, she saw a small sign marked: SOUTH STAIRWELL-LOBBY LEVEL. Praying for an escape, she grabbed the doorknob. Once again, it was locked. “SON OF A BITCH!” she screamed.

From the north stairwell door, Lisa heard Claremont shouting back to Rick. Their voices were loud. Lisa knew they couldn’t be more than a few floors away.

As she raced back to the elevators, Lisa could barely catch her breath. Furiously, she punched both call buttons. “C’mon, you piece of crap! Get here!” One elevator was now on the seventeenth floor and the other was still at the twenty-sixth; they had barely moved. Convinced that Claremont and Rick would be there in seconds, she looked down the hall and remembered the swimming pool outside the window. She took a deep breath. It’s only four stories, she calculated. I can probably make it if I go through fast enough. Before she could talk herself out of it, Lisa tucked her elbows in tight and ran full speed, barreling down the hallway toward the huge window next to the stairwell. Shoulder first, shoulder first, shoulder first, she repeated to herself as she raced toward her target.

Lisa hurled her body against the glass just as Claremont emerged from the stairwell. He grabbed the chain of Lisa’s handcuffs, even as the glass started to shatter. Propelled forward by her momentum, Lisa cleared the threshold of the window, as thousands of tiny glass shards rained down on her. The weight of her fall had brought Claremont down flat on his stomach and dragged him to the edge of the window. But something had stopped his slide: Rick.

“Are you okay?” Rick asked, holding Claremont by the belt.

Looking over the edge, Claremont struggled to hold on to Lisa, who was dangling outside the window. “Y-yeah,” Claremont said.

“No! Don’t!” Lisa screamed as her hands grabbed Claremont’s wrist. Her face and arms were covered in hundreds of tiny, bleeding cuts. “Please don’t drop me!”

Without the momentum to reach the pool, Lisa would fall directly onto the tiled atrium, where a crowd had already started to gather. “Drop her,” Rick said.

“What?” Claremont asked.

“Please don’t!” Lisa screamed. “Don’t drop me!”

“Drop her, and let’s get out of here,” Rick said. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense.”

Still, Claremont held on to Lisa’s handcuffs, his arm tensing from the weight.

“I said drop her,” Rick demanded. “What’s wrong with you? We were going to kill them anyway.”

With all his strength, Claremont held tight.

Rick pulled his gun from his waist and pointed it at Claremont’s head. “You’re not Richard Claremont. Who the hell are you?” Lifting his arm, Claremont started to pull Lisa to safety. Rick pulled back the hammer on his gun and pressed the gun against Claremont’s head. “You have three seconds to tell me who you are. At the end of three, you’re both going out this window. One…two…”

“Ben!” Lisa screamed. Rick spun around to a blast of white foam. As Rick rubbed his burning eyes, Ben ran into the corridor wielding a fire extinguisher. With his wrists still handcuffed, Ben swung the fire extinguisher like a baseball bat and slammed Rick in the side of the head. Rick stumbled backward and fell to the floor. He fired his gun, and a jagged pain ripped through Ben’s left shoulder. He’d been shot. Staggering forward, Ben swung the fire extinguisher again, this time knocking the gun out of Rick’s hands.

Ben struggled to swing the fire extinguisher one more time, but the pain in his shoulder was impossible to ignore. Seeing the blood that rushed down his arm, he felt faint and dropped the extinguisher.

“Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?” Rick asked, stumbling to his feet. “The next one’s going in your head.”

Holding his shoulder, Ben looked down the hallway and saw Rick’s gun lying on the floor by the elevators. He looked back at Rick, who was almost standing.